Years ago, I bought a wonderful book entitled "The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made and How They Got to be That Way". I agreed with most of the inclusions but I have found that a few of the films were definitely NOT bad enough to make the book (such as THAT HAGAN GIRL and DICK TRACY VS. CUEBALL). Because of the inclusion of the Dick Tracy film, I avoided watching the films for years--thinking they stank. And, when I did see my first (DICK TRACY'S DILEMMA), it was pretty bad. But today I sat down and watched the first film from the series as well as DICK TRACY VS. CUEBALL and found both of them to be decent B-movies--average, yes, but far from "50 Worst" territory.
Now that I've seen all four of the RKO Tracy films, I realize that this first one is the best. Part of it might be because "Splitface" (Mike Mazurky) was a pretty good villain and NOT as silly as some of the ones in later films. He was a big goon who killed his victims by slashing them repeatedly with a mortician's knife. Also, there were actually some decent plot twists and the action was pretty horrific towards the end--with some amazingly graphic murders for the time period in which they were made. Decent and entertaining--this is a good bet for fans of B-detective films (like me).
By the way, the mortician who is brutally killed in this movie appears again in the next film, DICK TRACY VS. CUEBALL and he showed no signs of being a zombie. So much for continuity.
Now that I've seen all four of the RKO Tracy films, I realize that this first one is the best. Part of it might be because "Splitface" (Mike Mazurky) was a pretty good villain and NOT as silly as some of the ones in later films. He was a big goon who killed his victims by slashing them repeatedly with a mortician's knife. Also, there were actually some decent plot twists and the action was pretty horrific towards the end--with some amazingly graphic murders for the time period in which they were made. Decent and entertaining--this is a good bet for fans of B-detective films (like me).
By the way, the mortician who is brutally killed in this movie appears again in the next film, DICK TRACY VS. CUEBALL and he showed no signs of being a zombie. So much for continuity.